B.C. Lions cap season of parity as Grey Cup champions

Grey Cup 2011: B.C. Lions cap season of parity as champions

Well, somebody had to win. Even in a year where no team could put together a dozen wins for the first time since the league went to the 18-game schedule — in 1986, if you’re scoring at home — they give out the Grey Cup each and every year, whether the weather permits it or not.

Under the luminous rigging of the new roof at BC Place in Vancouver, with the natural light streaming and then vanishing through the new upper-story windows, the weather was fine. And in the 99th Grey Cup, an unremarkable season ended with a performance that was both admirable and unmemorable, as the B.C. Lions recorded an admirable, unmemorable 34-23 victory over the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

“We won the whole thing,” exclaimed veteran lions offensive lineman Angus Reid. “We went 12-1 on the back end. Of course we were [the best team]. Of course. Dominant. Nobody else came close to that.”

The Bombers didn’t either, the final score be damned. Despite giving Winnipeg every chance to write their own ending, the Lions proved there was one great team in this league this year, even if they were 1-6 before they became one.

“We haven’t had a chance to relax in probably five months,” said receiver Geroy Simon, “and now we can finally relax, because we know where we came from, and it was so hard to get out of that hole that we dug.”

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This game was a final and definitive claim to this season of parity, of mediocrity, of water finding its level. It was still a one-possession game until the final minute of the third quarter, when the Lions finally took a grinding game and gave it wings. Kierrie Johnson, a birdlike 24-year-old rookie with 20 catches and no touchdowns all season, flew behind Winnipeg’s Jonathan Hefney. Even though Travis Lulay’s deep ball seemed to hang like a zeppelin, Johnson gathered it and was gone for a 66-yard touchdown and a 24-9 lead.

The subsequent touchdown to Arland Bruce III was insurance. Winnipeg scored two late touchdowns and had a chance at an onside kick, but Jamie Boreham kicked it two yards short of the requisite 10. It was, for Winnipeg, that kind of game.

“I mean, you can always say if, but ‘if’ didn’t show up,” said Winnipeg defensive end Odell Willis. “We didn’t make plays. We lost.”

Which, in the end, was about right. After all, this has been a down sort of season for the league, truth be told. Yes, there was stability and relative prosperity, the yawning hole in Toronto notwithstanding. But with Montreal decaying, B.C. starting 1-6, Winnipeg closing 3-7, a wide and unreliable middle class and Saskatchewan and Toronto lost in the wilds, there was no great team, and fewer great games than we had been accustomed to. It was a lower-case CFL, all in all.

And then this week provided a couple old-time memories. CFL icons Joe Kapp and Angelo Mosca got in your basic septuagenarian cane-and-fists fight at the alumni lunch — you just never expect 73-year-olds to brawl at a lunch — in a brief dust-up that seems destined to become a part of the CFL’s enduring myth.

And before the game, another legend was nearly added to the canon. Word filtered out that one of the down markers was broken, and the league’s official radio broadcast reported a police escort had to drive an official to Notre Dame Secondary School, some six kilometres away, to procure a new one. Others said one was simply requested from the school, though it was a Sunday. While the pre-game ceremonies seemed uncommonly unhurried, a marker was produced in time, and the game began.

And it looked for all the world like the Lions would roll. After a 19-yard touchdown run from Andrew Harris on their second possession of the game, they became incremental: a field goal, a 54-yard single after an interception, another field goal. An unnecessary personal foul from B.C.’s Jason Arakgi and a pure touchdown whiff from a crooked-armed Shawn Gore led to two Winnipeg field goals before Nickelback blighted halftime. The Bombers were hanging around, hanging around. When asked about the personal foul at halftime, Lions coach Wally Buono told TSN, “This is a championship game. We should play like champions.”

Winnipeg got to within 14-9 and Lions kicker Paul McCallum, the league’s very best at his position, doinked a 48-yarder off the upright, his first miss in nine career playoff games with the Lions. B.C. got to 17-9, but it wasn’t over. Hanging around.

But the Lions blew it open, and Winnipeg was left with ghosts of a chance. With just over 12 minutes left Willis had an interception and perhaps a touchdown in his hands, and he flubbed it. The onside kick failed. Brown seemed to have been hollowed out in the locker room afterwards; he lost one of these at the beginning of his career, and one at the end. But he won’t be the only one haunted.

At the other end, Lulay’s 320 yards and two touchdowns were good for Most Valuable Player honours, and Harris the Most Outstanding Canadian.

B.C. won 12 of its last 13 games, seizing control of a league that was just waiting for someone to rise above the crowd. It was like this game, played out over months. Eventually, the B.C. Lions played like champions.

“I don’t know what they did in that locker room to turn that switch on like they did, but they did,” said Winnipeg receiver Terrence Edwards.” And the last 13 games, man, they played like the best team, and they proved it tonight again.”

So that’s your season, ladies and gentlemen. A season, a champion, a runner-up, and fewer great memories than your average year. Now comes winter, spring, and another summer to try again.